Swinburne startup shelters homeless

Alastair Pryor, a student at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, has launched Compact Shelters. The startup aims to provide the homeless with portable shelters that can be folded up within minutes.

The individual shelters, which can also be used for aid relief, during natural disasters or even camping, can be joined together to larger dwellings. The company has gained interest from distributors in the US and Singapore to license the product, but it insists its purpose is not to make a profit. 

Developed with the help of industrial designers in Melbourne, the shelters took a year from idea to final product. Pryor has deferred his degree at Swinburne – he had been studying entrepreneurship – but was provided with the tools to launch the startup by the university.

Meanwhile, Pryor is hoping to push his idea further. He has begun working on a collapsible toilet for Oxfam in the UK, and an antibacterial shelter that can be used as a portable surgery room during events such as floods or tsunamis. The latter project is being supported by the UN.

Pryor explained his inspiration for Compact Shelters: “I used to work as a scaffolder, and one morning I was making a lot of noise hammering which woke up this homeless man below me. I felt for the homeless man as it was so cold, wet and windy. His living conditions would be painful during the cold, harsh Melbourne winter. The whole emphasis around it was curating a solution to fix a problem, which was an easier form of shelter for the homeless. So it was not really developed for profiteering purposes – it was developed to help people.”